Black wattle

Acacia decurrens is a fast-growing evergreen tree of the Fabaceae family typically 6-15 m tall with a single straight trunk to 30 cm in diameter, dark fissured bark and an open spreading crown of slightly drooping branches. A distinctive vegetative character is the prominently winged or 'decurrent' angles of the green to glaucous-green young branchlets, where ribs run down from the leaf bases. The leaves are alternate, bipinnate (the genuine compound leaves of acacia, not phyllodes as in many congeners), 5-12 cm long, with 5-15 pairs of widely spaced pinnae each bearing 30-60 pairs of narrowly linear leaflets 5-15 mm long; conspicuous raised glands occur at the base of each pair of pinnae and again at the junction of the pinnae with the leaflets. The inflorescences are produced in late winter and early spring as long axillary panicles of 10-30 globose bright golden-yellow flower heads 5-7 mm in diameter, each composed of many small fragrant five-merous flowers with very numerous exserted stamens that supply the entire colour. The fruit is a flat narrowly oblong dark brown legume 5-10 cm long and 5-9 mm wide, slightly constricted between the 5-10 shiny dark seeds, each with a small aril. Native to south-eastern Australia.